A string or “stringed” instrument is a musical device that produces sound by vibrating bands of stretched material. The bands are referred to as the strings. The sound created by the vibrating strings is transferred to a main body of the instrument or to a pickup in the case of an electronically-amplified instrument, eventually resonating to the air.
Many stringed instruments include a neck. The neck is a part of the instrument that projects from the main body and may include a fingerboard, which may also be known as a fretboard. One fingerboard may be a thin, long strip of wood, laminated or otherwise coupled to a front of the neck below where the strings are typically stretched across. One type of fingerboard may be a fretted fingerboard. A fretted fingerboard is a fingerboard comprised of frets, which are typically raised thin strips of hard metal material, such as stainless steel or a nickel alloy like nickel-silver. Frets are typically aligned substantially perpendicularly to the stretched stings and divide a stringed instrument neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework.
These thin strips of metal are adapted to help transfer the sound of the vibrating strings to the instrument body or pickups. This occurs by pressing a string against a fret and subsequently exciting the string portion between the fret and the body. By attaching frets to a neck, a musician may more easily stop the string in the same place than if a neck without frets was used, thereby more easily playing the same notes. Although frets are often fixed, as in a guitar or mandolin, they may be movable as well, as on a lute. Another benefit of using frets is that they allow for less dampening of the string vibration than would happen if a string was pressed directly against the neck and fingerboard.
As frets allow instrument strings to vibrate or resonate for a longer period of time than without frets, the frets help provide tone definition to the instrument. As prior art fretted stringed instruments typically use only metal frets, the tonal quality of these instruments is generally stagnant and is typically only modified by modifying other aspects of the stringed instrument such as, but not limited to, the body size and shape, the string thickness, or by implementing pickup modifications. Musicians are always looking for the latest developments in string instruments in order to produce novel tones in their music. These changes in tone and sound have been regularly sought. One example of this is the fact that many Rock-and-Roll guitarists use both Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster guitars as these models tend to produce tones unique unto each model.
In addition to seeking variety in the tone associated with stringed instruments, musicians also seek variety in the visual presentation of their instrument. For example, a flying-v guitar model presents a different look to an audience than a typical Fender guitar model or a Gibson guitar model. Optical presentations are often sought by musicians in order to increase the perceived entertainment value of the performance by the audience. Therefore, musicians often present graphical displays on the body of their instruments, and many rock-and-roll and other musicians of various genres use an array of multicolored lights and lasers to provide visual stimulations to the audience. As audiences often purchase tickets to musical presentations in order to view the latest in visual and optical presentations, as well as to hear the music, it is often a necessity for musicians to seek, obtain, and display these visual and optical presentations for their audiences less their audience choose to purchase concert tickets to other musicians displaying such novel presentations, devices, and sounds.